This invention is directed toward a method of producing cellulose encased sausages, and more particularly a method of producing food safe cellulose encased sausages.
Presently, cellulose encased sausages (i.e., hot dogs and the like) are exposed to the environment after cooking and before packaging. As a result, sausages are potentially exposed to pathogen contaminants such as Listeria or Salmonella. When consumed, pathogen infected food products can cause serious illness or even death. Present production methods attempt to minimize this risk, but are not foolproof.
Thus, to guarantee a food-safe product, post packaging treatments such as high pressure pasteurization, post heat pasteurization, and irradiation are used. While these treatments produce a food-safe product, they also degrade the quality of the product, are complex to use, and/or are costly. Therefore, a need exists in the art for a method that produces a safe cellulose encased sausage, while maintaining a high quality product, reducing production costs, and being easy to perform.
An objective of the present invention is to provide a method of producing a safe cellulose encased sausage that maintains high product quality.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a method of producing a safe cellulose encased sausage that reduces production costs.
A still further objective of this invention is to provide a method of producing a safe cellulose encased sausage where the method is easy to perform.
These and other objectives will be apparent to one skilled in the art based upon the following disclosure